Blog item posted February 24, 2014

• WTTW announced a major gift Monday from the family of Renée Crown, board vice chair of licensee Window to the World Communication Inc. (WWCI), and will name its northwest Chicago media center in her honor. The donation celebrates Crown’s birthday as well as her tenure as “an extraordinary trustee and leader” of WWCI since 1981, the station said. It did not reveal the amount of the contribution.

WGBH’s 2-Toy.

• Premiums sure have come a long way. John Kerr, former WGBH development manager, recently ran across this Channel 2-Toy at a friend’s house. The sunny yellow 2-Toy was a gift to donors supporting children’s programs back in the days when Julia Child was pitching for dollars. Kerr’s golden retriever Barnaby was part of the on-air fun.

• Matter, the startup accelerator backed by San Francisco’s KQED and partly owned by Public Radio Exchange, is sponsoring a demo day for its second class Tuesday in New York City. The class, which has evolved since its announcement in October 2013, now includes Beatroot, which helps journalists measure impact; Butler, which allows better customer tracking through websites; and Made, an invitation-only freelance services website. The NYC event runs from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Greene Space, 44 Charlton St. (at Varick).

• In his column announcing his supposed retirement from public life in New York magazine, Alec Baldwin discusses his frustration with MSNBC as he tried to create a TV version of his WNYC podcast, Here’s the Thing. “To think that something as uncomplicated and innocent as that led to the MSNBC debacle is still surreal to me,” he writes, referring to his termination from the cable network after a series of public outbursts.